The World's Christians. Douglas Jacobsen

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СКАЧАТЬ government policies designed to change or control the Orthodox churches. In certain cases, the linkage between nationalism and Orthodox faith has been so strong that the two have practically merged. The Eastern Orthodox tradition makes a distinction between a proper sense of cooperation with the state (called symphonia) and an improper veneration of, or subservience to, the state (called phyletism), but sometimes that distinction gets lost in actual practice.

      It should be noted that these descriptions of Orthodox practices relate primarily to the Eastern Orthodox Church and not to the Oriental (or Miaphysite) Orthodox Churches. This major divide within the Orthodox world dates back to a sixth‐century dispute concerning the human and divine natures of Christ. The group of churches that became known as Eastern Orthodoxy favors the phrase “two natures in one person” that was proposed at the Council of Chalcedon in the year 451. The group of churches that came to be known as Oriental Orthodox rejects the wording from the Council of Chalcedon and favors their own more unitive way of understanding how the human and the divine were merged in Christ. This may sound like a minor difference of theological opinion, but the implications for Christian ethics and spirituality are significant. The divide between these two families of Orthodox churches is deep and at times in the past it has been violent. While the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches are very similar in most matters of Christian faith and practice, and while conversations toward reunion have been going on for more than half a century, it seems highly unlikely that this division will be healed anytime soon.

      All Orthodox churches are organized in roughly the same way, with the local see or diocese being the core. This is the heart of the church, where the faithful worship under the guidance and oversight of a local bishop. Every bishop is the spiritual equal of every other bishop. Titles like archbishop and metropolitan, which are given to bishops of important cities, are to some degree designations of honor and respect rather than of power and authority. While archbishops and metropolitans do have special responsibilities within the Orthodox churches, they are not super‐bishops or mini‐popes, and they never hand down decisions about matters of faith as if from on high. The goal is always to establish consensus among all the bishops. Bishops in the Orthodox tradition are unmarried, and most of them were previously monks. The transition from monastery to parish is usually not difficult. Small monasteries are scattered throughout the Orthodox world, so there is almost always one somewhere nearby. Many laypeople visit the monasteries on a regular basis, and many monks serve as spiritual directors for local laypeople and clergy.

In contrast to the bishops, most Orthodox priests are married. Priests frequently need to give spiritual advice to the married members of their parishes, and it is assumed that unmarried men would be ill‐equipped for the task. The extended family is tremendously important in the Orthodox tradition. The family is perceived as the most intimate social container of the Orthodox faith, the place where children first learn of God and where Orthodox Christians learn the joys and difficulties of living in relationship or synodality. Many Orthodox church buildings reflect this familial ethos. While most non‐Orthodox individuals are more familiar with Orthodox churches that are large and impressive – these are the kinds of churches that tourists visit – many Orthodox churches are small and intimate places (see Figure 1.4). A local village or neighborhood church may accommodate only fifteen or twenty people, and almost every worshipper in the room will be related to everyone else, sharing the communion of Orthodox faith and spirituality as a natural part of life.

Story

The history of Orthodoxy is long and complicated, but it can be roughly divided into four 500‐year periods. The first of these periods (up to the year 500) represents the prehistory of the movement, a time when the roots of the Orthodox Church were developing. The years from 500 to 1000 are the “formative age,” when Orthodoxy coalesced into its own separate and distinct tradition. This period can also be called the Early Byzantine Era because most of the key events took place in connection with the beginning of the Byzantine Empire. The Late Byzantine Era (1000–1500) was a time of political decline, but also of theological advancement. Finally, the fourth era, starting around 1500 and continuing up to the present, can be called the “national church” period, when most of the current state–church structures of Orthodoxy came into existence.

Figure 1.4 Interior of small Orthodox church (Paphos, Cyprus).

      Photo by author.

      Prehistory: beginnings to 500

      The deep roots of the Orthodox tradition extend back to the earliest Greek‐speaking Christian communities within the ancient Roman Empire. The Roman Empire was bilingual, with Greek spoken by most people in the eastern half of the empire and Latin spoken in the west. Words and languages package reality, and thereby shape the way people see the world. Greek‐speaking Christians were more prone to think philosophically and abstractly about matters of faith, while Latin‐speaking Christianity (which would eventually become the Catholic tradition) was generally more concrete and legalistic. To some degree the contours of this distinction remain in place even today.

But while the deep roots of the Orthodox tradition can be traced to the earliest years of the Christian movement in the Roman Empire, it makes little sense to speak about a distinctly Orthodox tradition during these years. The Christian movement as a whole was just getting started, and many different and sometimes contradictory impulses were being expressed. It was only after the year 325, when the first ecumenical (general or universal) council of Christian leaders was held in the city of Nicaea (in the northwest corner of modern Turkey), that the earliest framework for the Orthodox tradition began to coalesce. Three more ecumenical councils would be held before the year 500, culminating in the Council of Chalcedon (451). These four councils produced the foundational principles that form the common base for both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions. The last of these councils also triggered the separation of the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches.

      The formative (or early Byzantine) age: 500 to 1000

      The Byzantine Empire is the name given to the Eastern half of the Roman Empire (roughly equivalent to modern Greece and Turkey) after the empire lost political control of the Western Mediterranean Sea. This name change is also associated with the transition of the Eastern Roman Empire into a solely Greek‐speaking state, which took place during the first half of this five‐hundred‐year period. This is also when the Catholic and Orthodox Churches – the Latin‐speaking and the Greek‐speaking Christian churches of the old Roman Empire – began to drift apart, slowly taking on their own separate and distinctive identities. The reasons for this drift are complex, including political and cultural developments as well as emerging theological differences, but by the year 1000 it was clear that Orthodox and Catholic Christians were developing separate and distinct understandings of who they were in matters of faith. As if to mark this fact, the so‐called “Great Schism” that took place in the year 1054 (an event that involved the papal condemnation of the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Patriarch’s responsive denunciation of the Pope) is often cited as the formal point of separation between the two churches.

Eastern Orthodoxy’s distinctive identity was forged in this era, and the Iconoclastic Controversy was a key event. This dispute took place during the 700s and the 800s and focused on whether icons should be allowed in the churches or whether they should be banned as idolatrous. The iconophiles (lovers of icons) eventually won this contest, defeating the iconoclasts (opponents of icons). Icons have played a central role in Orthodox life and spirituality ever since. While the Second Council of Nicaea, held in 787, settled this issue theologically, the final victory of the iconophile movement (often referred to as the Triumph of Orthodoxy) СКАЧАТЬ